Promotion

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, latest history bending film

The latest film to merge history with a little bit of complete fantasy, like Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies, has arrived and it will be Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The film is based on a book by Seth Grahame-Smith (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com) which has just been released, and while that might not excite you, the people behind the film version will, Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

You may recognise that combination from the visually lovely and emotionally engaging film 9, although the story itself and in particular the ending left a lot unexplored, it was a very good film.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter does pretty much what it says on the tin, as with Grahame-Smith's other novel Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies (see the connection here?) the clues are all in the title, and the same author! It's about Abraham Lincoln, the American President, who happened to be a vampire hunter and killer at the same time.

The story from The Hollywood Reporter Heat Vision does tell us that neither Tim Burton nor Timur Bekmambetov are attached to direct, and it suggests that neither will ever be either, this is another production deal and they are looking for a new director.

Here's the blurb for the book:

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation..

According to the article it was the trailer for the book that excited everyone, that would be the very American trailer since he's not quite everyone's sixteenth President.

It fits the formula, famous novel/person mixed in with a modern horror element, and viola, a quirky novel and a film deal to boot. However I don't even think there's anything they can do to this story to make it appealing to me, and by the way, I hate the practice of trailers for books.